The Revolution Continues (RCA) is an electoral coalition that, according to its members, comprises an ideologically diverse set of actors, namely liberal, Islamists and socialists, including the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood who defected from the group and helped form the Egyptian Current Party. According to Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPA) member Abdel Ghaffar Shukr, the RCA stands for freedom, social equality and human rights. It consists of the SPA the Egyptian Socialist Party, the Egyptian Current Party, the Freedom Egypt Party, Equality and Development Party, the Revolution’s Youth Coalition (RYC) and the Egyptian Alliance Party.

Through 280 candidates (out of a possible 332), the RCA is contesting thirty-four (out of a possible forty-six) party list races for the 508-member lower house of parliament. Additionally, twenty-six (out of a possible 166) candidates will contest single-winner seats. The legal framework governing the elections gives the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces the right to appoint ten of the 508 members of the lower house.

According to Egyptian Current Party leader and former Muslim Brotherhood member, Islam Lotfy, 100 of these candidates are below the age of forty. The majority of candidates that the alliance will field belong to the SPA, according to RCA member Khaled Abdel Hamid. Some thirty-two are affiliates of the Egyptian Current Party. The Egypt Freedom Party had announced in late October plans to field only twenty-two candidates, including party founder Amr Hamzawy who is contesting a single winner seat in Cairo. Two of the coalition’s electoral lists will feature women in their top spots, namely Karima Al-Hefnawy of the Egyptian Socialist Party and actress Taysir Fahmy of the Equality and Development Party.

The alliance’s electoral lists will feature the name of the SPA, since it is the only party in the coalition with legal authorization to contest party list parliamentary seats. Participation in the party list races is limited to registered parties by law. On the other hand, some of the RCA’s affiliates running for single-winner races will be identified on the ballots as “independent” candidates even though they are politically sponsored by the coalition.

Due to much confusion and disagreement, the RCA was formed shortly before the candidate registration deadline. Many of the parties constituting the RCA were initially members of The Egyptian Bloc, a secular leaning alliance that once included the SPA, the Egypt Freedom Party and the Egyptian Socialist Party. These parties withdrew from the Bloc reportedly due to inter-party conflicts over seat shares and the relative positions of various candidates in the coalition’s electoral lists. Disagreements were also associated with allegations that some parties are fielding ex-members of the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) on the Bloc’s lists to the dismay of member groups that oppose any participation by ex-regime elements in the elections.

According to Ahmed Bahaa Shabaan, head of the Egyptian Socialist Party, the Egyptian Bloc also prioritized some parties over others. In the upcoming elections, two-thirds of parliamentary seats will be filled through a closed party list system. The fact that each list consists on average of only seven seats makes it difficult for a large number of parties to cooperate in a single coalition. All coalitions experienced similar defections once they started forming their joint electoral lists.

Many of the parties that withdrew from the Egyptian Bloc quickly formed the new Revolution Continues Alliance carrying a more social oriented agenda. The RYC and the Egyptian Current Party almost withdrew from the RCA one week before the candidate registration deadline, objecting that the SPA was dominating the top positions of all lists at the expense of the youth groups. The problem was quickly renegotiated to allow more youth members to head lists and the RCA was able to submit its candidate rosters before the official registration deadline.

Titled “Security, Freedom, and Social Justice,” the RCA’s platform, which it announced in early November, focuses on re-establishing law and order, promoting social justice and closing the income gap between the rich and the poor. According to the platform, members of the Alliance, if elected, would work immediately on re-establishing security and cleansing state institutions of corruption — particularly the police, judiciary, state media and public universities. They would also work on passing a national budget that provides for unemployment benefits and increases state spending on healthcare, education and public housing. The RCA platform commits its members to providing decent housing conditions to those living in slums, and to establishing a just minimum wage and a maximum wage that does not exceed fifteen times the minimum. The platform calls for cancelling all the debts of small-scale farmers and protects the rights of tenant farmers vis-à-vis landowners.

1 comment for "Revolution Continues Alliance"

I am from vancouver,canada and i wanted to say that i supports the working class in Egypt.They are the ones that will make the necessary changes in Egypt.For real change the working class in Egypt needs to take political power into their own hands so that things will be done for the good of the people.Only when the majority of the people in Egypt have a say in how things are done will there be peace.